Posted on 01/30/2014 5:29:36 AM PST by Wolfie
Parents upset after school takes lunches from students with account deficits
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Dozens of students at a Salt Lake City elementary school were served lunch Tuesday, only to have the food taken from them and thrown away in an incident parents said was uncalled for and humiliating for the children.
The incident took place at Uintah Elementary School when students were told there was no money in their school lunch accounts.
The students’ lunches were taken and thrown away, and the students were provided with fruit and milk. Officials said it’s school policy for food in such situations to be put in the trash.
Parent Erica Lukes said taking away her child’s lunch was “ridiculous.”
“I don’t think any child should have to feel like that over a two-dollar lunch balance,” she said. Jason Olsen is the communication director for the Salt Lake City School District, and he said in a statement officials with the school and district started calling parents with negative or zero balances on school lunch accounts beginning Monday and continuing Tuesday. He said students without money in their account were told Tuesday they would only be getting fruit and milk.
Because the children are given their lunch before they go to the computer to process payment, those without positive account balances had their lunches taken away from them.
The statement from Olsen reads in part: “This situation could have and should have been handled in a different manner. We apologize.
We are also investigating what type of notification parents may or may not have received prior to this week. The schools says they inform students when they go through the lunch line if they have a low balance. They say they also send notes home in the student’s Monday folders. However, when contacted Monday or Tuesday, many parents were surprised by the news. The district has specific guidelines for school kitchen managers on how parents should be notified, and we are currently investigating to see if these guidelines were followed correctly.
We understand the feelings of upset parents and students who say this was an embarrassing and humiliating situation. We again apologize and commit to working with parents in rectifying this situation and to ensuring students are never treated in this manner again.”
I sure do! Then I graduated to a brown bag and a dime for the Coke machine. Simpler times, then.
Yes simpler times and better I think. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I actually ate the school lunch that they served.
There was no free lunch program at that time. I can’t remember any kid really going without. Most of the time the teachers would buy kids lunch if they saw they didn’t have any money. When I became a teacher I used to buy lunch for any kid that forgot theirs or didn’t have money. It alwasy worked out.
That horse has left the barn.
Better for sure. Nobody had any money and any bullies got ganged up on and whipped. But nobody went hungry!
Why can’t a family have a surplus in their account so that these things don’t happen?
Not pointing fingers, but I would have my food taken away if I went to a K & W Cafeteria, went through the line and got food on my tray and didn’t have money to pay at the register.
It is wasteful, I agree, but schools can’t give keep giving food away as no one would ever pay.
Serbsky Institute? :-) The ideal re-education camp...
Our solution? Have our family Dr (a relative) issue a prescription for lunch. Any school throwing away a prescription will be in deep do do. They have to have it for chapstick, tums, aspirin, ibuprophen, might as well have it for lunch......as a “doctor monitored health and welfare diet”.
Well, if my son had turned in his check two weeks ago he would have had a surplus as usual. like I told him, that was his fault. I’m just saying it’s not always the parents, sometimes it’s just the kid forgets to turn in his check.
Understood. So now he understands that there are consequences when he doesn’t do his part?
And I do understand. My best friend’s son is going through something exactly like this now and is having a hard time understanding his part in it when he exhibited irresponsibility and is suffering as a result.
As a child the embarrassment of your parents not taking care of you will either spur you on to never be humiliated or you don’t care because you think you are useless anyway.
First off the parents were not properly notified. They served the kids then took their lunches away and threw them out they wasted food.
Secondly several people that I know personally as well as others offered to pay to cover the balances for these kids and the principal of Unitah Elementary REFUSED, and told them she or the school didn’t need their money and that it was none of their business.
She needs to go. They served the kids then took their lunches away and threw them out they wasted food.
some school districts no longer allow that.
This could be a new Direct TV commercial:
“Don’t let your kid get punched in the stomach for a delinquent account.”
Lawmakers visit school where lunches were tossed for kids without funds
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